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Friday, October 25, 2013

A state could have administrative,
legislative and judicial capitals. ‘Legislative’
capital houses the state assembly, while the ‘administrative’ capital houses
the state’s government offices. Judicial
capital houses the state high court. When
we refer to the capital city of a state, it is usually a city that hosts
both administrative and legislative capitals.
A state could operate its high
court from another city – for example, Uttar Pradesh has its high court in
Allahabad while the state capital is Lucknow.

Who decides
the capital city for a state in India?

Contrary to the prevailing opinion in Andhra
Pradesh, the Union Government does not decide where a state’s capita should be,
nor does it mention the state’s capital in the state reorganization bill. The responsibility of choosing a state
capital resides with each state. It can
decide to host its administrative and legislative capitals out of any city,
town or village within its territory. And
the territory of a state is defined clearly in the state reorganization bill,
listing all its districts and constituencies.
Though it is not the common practice, a state could choose more than one
state capital. For example, Maharashtra
has Mumbai and Nagpur as its capital cities.
And the state could change its capital city any time – Gujarat moved its
capital city from Ahmedabad to Gandhinagar.

Monday, October 21, 2013

The state of Andhra Pradesh was forged out of two culturally
and historically disparate regions in 1956 under the premise of creating a
single state for all Telugu speaking people.
Even before the formation of this state, it was articulated by the Fazal
Ali Commission, and voiced explicitly through the fears of Telangana people,
that a common language was not the only criterion for creating states. There was a sane recognition, though in
minority, that there existed other differences which warranted a region like
Telangana to exist as a separate state overriding the emotive binding factor
like language.

To protect the interests of Telangana people against possible
onslaught of more politically empowered, economically emancipated, and
Telugu-English-educated people from Coastal Andhra, the Gentlemen’s Agreement
of 1956 was created to facilitate the conditional merger of Telangana region
with Andhra State. The original Article
371 constituted Telangana Regional Committee along with protective Mulki Rules.

[Appeared in Indian Express on 8th October, 2013; coauthored with Vinod Kumar]

Contrary to the prevailing opinion, in this country, new state
formation has never been smooth. Nor were the procedures exactly similar. Each
state formation was unique and had followed a different sequence of
steps. The only thing common to all the state formations so far in
Independent India has been the rigid applicability of Article 3 in its truest
sense, where Parliament is given the supreme authority to carve out states
irrespective of the opinion of the involved State Assemblies.

While the NDA followed a convenient procedure in the creation of
Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand in 2000, where the state assemblies
initiated the demand for separation, such a procedure is neither legally
mandated nor is constitutionally prescribed and deviates from most other prior
state formations.

Even the original reason for carving out states is different for each
state. While some states in India were formed on the basis of recommendations
by the States Reorganization Commission (SRC), most others have not been dealt
with by the SRC. And in certain cases, states were formed though SRC made
explicit negative recommendations, like in case of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Even the formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1956 did not follow the recommendations
of SRC.

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

The entire Seemandhra political objection to the current
decision on Telangana has been that ‘the concerns and demands of Seemandhras
have not been addressed’. However, till
today, there has been no clear announcement from any section of Seemandhra on
what those concerns and demands are.

For example, today on NTV, when the APNGOs were asked the
question, ‘what are you demands and concerns?’ they all responded, that they
may have some concerns, but they are not going to spell it out, because they
have only demand – that is United Andhra Pradesh.

When asked if they would express their concerns and demands
to GoM that is constituted by the Union Government, they emphatically said they
would not. Because they believe GoM is
not empowered to address their concerns and demands. One of them said that there is no use talking
to GoM because none of them are from Andhra region.

Monday, October 07, 2013

Now that the
Cabinet Note on Telangana is prepared, the people of Seemandhra are in open revolt.
They launched violent agitations against bifurcation of Andhra
Pradesh. For the first time in four years of agitations in
the state, curfew has been imposed in Vizianagaram.

Many Seemandhra
leaders, the media channels, the activists, and the people, are blaming UPA for
the current crisis in Andhra Pradesh. They have been openly accusing UPA
government for the method and process it followed. They accuse it
of acting in haste.They accuse UPA of announcing this
decision only for political gains. They believe that the
bifurcation is an insult to Telugu Jaati (Pride).They also
believe that the process followed in announcing formation of Telangana is anti-democratic
and anti-federal.

In reality,
there is no merit in any of these accusations. Formation of
Telangana has been a thirteen-year long process. There have been many
promises, manifestos, meetings, decisions, committees, and consultations on
Telangana, and each of those steps inched Andhra Pradesh closer to the
bifurcation. In fact, there was an inordinate delay caused by activism of
Seemandhras who tried to obstruct the formation of Telangana all these
years. Now that the decision is made, Seemandhras find themselves in a
state of self-created crisis.

Friday, October 04, 2013

For many years now, Telanganas
have been trying to showcase to the whole world how Seemandhras have colonized
Telangana. To establish this we used facts, statistics, data, and many
examples. We have cited many issues where Telanganas were neglected,
discriminated or marginalized. If Seemandhras were keen on keeping the
state united, they would have used the last four years to address at least some
of our issues - like implementing GO 610. Instead they used threatening
language - CM Kiran Kumar Reddy warned our MLA Harish Rao that Telangana will
not even get one rupee. Undavalli promised to use the tyranny of
majority to obstruct formation of Telangana forever. Parakala Prabkhar
and his ilk have rubbished all our demands as lies. There was never an attempt to understand what
our problems were.

Today, in the last sixty days,
Seemandhras try to establish a case for united State. How do they do
it? While we talk of our lost water, lost opportunities and lost jobs,
they respond with slogans like 'kalasi unte kaladu sukham', 'Oka Baasha, Oka
Rashtram'. If Seemandhras were really sincere in keeping the
state united, wouldn't they take a look at our issues and respond to
them?

Seemandhras, instead
of addressing the issues raised by Telanganas, have gone on an aggressive path –
like how colonizers do. They are raising
fears and tempers within their region through artificial apprehensions and
imaginary fears. CM Kiran Kumar Reddy
warns of ‘water wars’. Other leaders have
said that Seemandhras will have to eat grass to survive. Some of them declared war on
Telangana – some warned of creating an army, some said they will
burst the pipes which provide water to Hyderabad, and some said they will
demolish Telangana Bhavan.

To understand better
how Seemandhras admit they have colonized Telangana, here is a video propagated
by them. They clearly establish that
Seemandhra cannot produce anything of its own and that it is completely dependent on
Telangana for everything – for food, water, revenues, employment and education –
isn’t that what colonial masters do? Use
the colonies for appropriating all their resources, opportunities and
monopolizing the trade and commerce?

In the end, they ask: "Should we give up Telangana?", exactly echoing how a colonial master thinks of his colonies - only as a provider of resources.

There is a big problem we Telanganas find
when faced with sheer ignorance of Seemandhras. We find them extremely
ignorant on topics related to history, geography, constitutional and legal
issues - so much so that it is like a discussing Newtonian Physics with a
dog.

Why are Seemandhras so ignorant on these
extremely important topics? That's because they are indoctrinated with
false information. Yesterday (Oct 1st) was 60th anniversary of formation
of Andhra State. But the map shown on NTV was that of Andhra
Pradesh. So most naturally many people in Andhra Pradesh believe that
Andhra State is same as Andhra Pradesh.